“Our culture runs on coffee and gasoline, the first often tasting like the second.”
Edward Abbey
May 5, 2019
I have been in Aarhus for just over a month and as a PhD student I rely on a steady dose of coffee to get through the day. This is fuelled by two things: the first is, I need more sleep than most people. I like to think this is because my brain works overtime, burning up all them delicious calories (and they are delicious! I spend a lot of money on things like vegan cheese, fermented paprika tofu, kombucha, things with fruit and nuts that don’t have names etc. etc. We have to eat anyway, so why not enjoy it? The same goes for existing in general… if Aarhus University AND Sydney University are going to supply with a some funds towards my cost of living the least I can do is live well). The second reason I need the coffee is because I’m craving the smooth, intense, satisfying hit of a great soy latte (preferably from, say, The Grounds of Alexandria… but T/A because the trashy pop music and sometimes impertinent service isn’t to my taste). This is easier said than done in Aarhus, where something about the coffee just isn’t right. It’s not great. It’s not even good. But it’s not so bad I stop buying it. I keep buying it… and it’s expensive.
My go-to is a double shot oat milk latte (because soy is often not available, or is very savoury-tasting, and quite thin in texture). If you don’t get two shots you might end up with an enormous glass of warm, faintly-flavoured milk. If you order a cortado you can get anything from a standard glass of coffee to a little espresso cup of coffee. It’s like Russian Roulette for people like me that don’t like gambling, or guns.
In general, if the choice is between going hard and going home, I’m probably going to pick the latter… The other night we introduced a new housemate to the dorm, and told him about how we have big parties every Friday night. “Well, it depends on your definition of ‘big party’…” I added. I was sipping kombucha and the other girls settled for warm water. However, as the night wore on a few of decided we would go and check out what was going on around the town, considering the big annual university boat race had occurred earlier.
And that is how I found myself in a real dorm party – the kind you see in American teen movies. People spilling out into the corridor, beer spilling over on the floor, shirtless people serving cheap drinks… the kind of world I was never part of, and don’t have any serious regrets about missing. The funny part is though, once we decided to stay (and not venture out into the freezing, snowing night) we kind of were the party. I mean, considering we were all sober, the international postgrads danced a whole lot more than the people who were probably invited and probably knew the residents of the dorm. We had just walked past and thought it looked fun (I was pretty coercive… it looked pretty darn fun). But it always strikes me as odd how many lone men there are at parties, who kind of lurk on the fringe of the dancefloor, frowning as if they can’t stop thinking about how they are the only ones who ever take the bins out, and it’s really getting to them. You know, that expression of mild but persistent annoyance.
Anyway, back to the coffee… I really have tried. And because I have tried and tested a lot of coffee shops, I’ll provide some useful feedback on them, right here. That way I can justify the expense as a kind of sociological experiment:
-La Cabra, Graven: I would love to love La Cabra. It’s a real coffee snob place, with about 2 items on the food menu, and a distinct selection of coffee that takes a very long time to come out. It probably is good, so far as they consciously take time to prepare the coffee a certain way. But it’s expensive, and not justifiably so, in my opinion. My cortado was tiny, warm (not hot) and not very flavoursome. 3 stars.
-Street Coffee, Vestergade: There’s three branches in Aarhus and I have been to one, but twice. I had a medium oat latte, and then the same but with soy milk. They were both pretty good: hot, well-frothed, and not as pricey. I’d go back. The girl who served me the first time was friendly, chatty and quirky, which are three qualities that you can’t rely upon from your server, so she was enough for me to return for a second time. 4.5 stars.
-Great Coffee, Klostergade: Don’t even get me started. I was super psyched to go here, because I love great coffee, right? And they serve great coffee soooo it seemed like a winning combination. I walked in, and it was one of those lab-style shops, where everything looks very functional but probably isn’t. I established they only had croissants to eat (which is probably the one food I would choose if I could only pick one food), but when I asked if they had soy or oat milk I was told no. Then a very pretentious man appeared, and said they only use cows’ milk because: “we make great coffee”. “Great if you like cow’s milk…” I said, feeling an argument welling up inside my sensitive stomach. “Yes, of course,” he said, almost confused. I walked out. And I was confused: firstly, I have had excellent soy milk coffees in Australia, so I know for a fact that this is possible. Also, any serious coffee connoisseur would surely recognise the origins of coffee as a drink that was not consumed with cow’s milk frothed to exactly 68 degrees. This isn’t the “natural” way to consume it. Anyway, like I said, don’t get me started… 1 star.
-The Lazy Wombat, Ceresbyen: Friendly service and nice coffee! I’m pretty sure I had a soy latte (for a change…) and it was probably one of the stronger coffees I had in Denmark. I’d recommend it. 4 stars.
-Dale’s Cafe, Aarhus University: This is the cafe in my dorm building, but it’s open to the public. The prices are good, probably because it’s a uni-run place. The woman working was quite unwell with a cold or something, which was really not ideal. She was also some kind of one-woman-show, taking a long time to serve customers in between preparing all the food and drinks, but this didn’t really affect me. I was very happy with my soy latte, which was large, hot and well-frothed. 4 stars.
AND THE WINNER IS…
-Altura Kaffe, Graven: I was keen to check out Altura Kaffe because, well, to be honest, my options were seriously dwindling and it’s one of the few highly-rated coffee shops left in Aarhus that I hadn’t tried yet. In fact, I’d always walked straight past, because it doesn’t have really any outdoor seating and it’s hard to see in through the windows. It gets lost in a street full of little cafes and bars. Finally, on a grey, misty Saturday afternoon I wandered in and ordered a soy latte to dine in. Their prices are mid to high, but at least I wasn’t nauseated or immensely disappointed and you can’t put a price on satisfaction* (*you probably can but I don’t deal in quantitative data). My latte came in a large mug but there actually latte art in it! I used to think latte art was a wanky waste of time (especially when I’d be looking for casual cafe jobs and realised I didn’t have the necessary skills when the ad asked for someone who possesses great latte art skills. So, since when was creativity valued in the workplace??). But seeing latte art in my coffee meant 1) the person making it was effortlessly good (she made it instantly in front of me) and 2) the milk is an ideal texture, not too thin or thick. I realise I’ve rattled on for quite a while, so long story short, the coffee was the closest I’ve had to the delicious soy lattes I’ve taken for granted living in Sydney. 5 stars.
The Chaos Children 